One Tweak Could Spark Monster Year From Joel Eriksson Ek

When the Minnesota Wild announced Jason King as their power play coach, the immediate thought was that the move would benefit Kirill Kaprizov most. Kaprizov is their best, most skilled player, and theoretically has the most to gain with an improved power play. King's power plays thrived over his three years with the Vancouver Canucks, thanks in part to skilled players in Elias Pettersson, J.T. Miller, and Brock Boeser.

But none of those players led the Canucks in power play goals over King's three seasons in Vancouver. Those honors go to Bo Horvat. The hard-working, net-crashing, two-way center scooped up 30 goals on the man advantage over those three years. That beat out Boeser (25 PPGs), Miller (22), and Pettersson (20).

Anyway, who does that description of Horvat sound like?Joel Eriksson Ek, who has three of the Wild's four power play goals this year?

Look, it's not any news that Eriksson Ek is good at scoring on the power play. In the last two seasons, Eriksson Ek is tied for 20th in the league -- alongside Horvat and Joe Pavelski -- with 24 power play goals. Minnesota doesn't necessarily need him to be better in that role, and it's hard to be much better in the first place.

But the Canucks probably were happy with what Horvat did on the power play before last season. And then, Horvat went Sicko Mode, scoring a staggering 31 goals (including 11 on the power play) in only 49 games. Furthermore, the second Horvat went to the New York Islanders, his scoring dropped down to seven goals in 30 games.

Some of that was regression, no doubt. Horvat shot 21.7% in Vancouver, and dropped to 8.1% on Long Island. The total result was a 16.6% shooting year. A career-high, yes, but not so far out of line from his 13.6% lifetime average. But it makes sense that moving out of Vancouver's power play also hurt his production.

Skilled distributors in Pettersson, Miller, and Quinn Hughes deserve a lot of credit. But if the Wild didn't think King deserved credit, they wouldn't have pursued him in the offseason. So what did King's system do for Horvat that the Wild didn't do for Eriksson Ek in the past?

Let's look at where Horvat's goals came from. While Horvat can plop himself in front of the net and score garbage goals, that wasn't his primary role. He served as a bumper/net-front hybrid. We can see this on his power play heat map last season. Watching the totality of his goals, he found the most success by getting open in between the crease and the slot and pouncing on opportunities. 

Now, let's look at where Eriksson Ek's shots came from on the power play. Last year, Eriksson Ek had one job on the power play, and he was damn good at it. See that dot? Stand there. We can watch all of Eriksson Ek's goals, the same way we did with Horvat. What stands out is how much offense he racked up without the flow of the power play never actually going through him.

By my (unofficial) count, 10 of Eriksson Ek's 12 power play goals came off rebounds, deflections, or tips. The exceptions were a goal where Calen Addison sprung Eriksson Ek for a breakaway, and a behind-the-net feed from Kaprizov. It was rare to see Eriksson Ek targeted as a true passing option, but rather as a funnel for their shots to hit twine.

That part of Eriksson Ek's game is alive and well. Just look at his first goal of the season, scored when a lucky deflection put the puck in his reach in front of the net:

But it's the Montreal Canadiens game where we see some new wrinkles. On the Wild's 5-on-3 goal, we see Kaprizov and Mats Zuccarello setting up their favorite play in these situations: Playing catch behind the net to get the goalie out of position. Instead of one of them taking it to the front of the net for a pseudo wraparound, though, Zuccarello fires a bullet to Eriksson Ek just in front of the crease. He knocks his own rebound in for his second goal of the year.

Then in a 5-on-4 during the third period, Kaprizov is weaving between Canadiens, sees Eriksson Ek at the goalmouth, and doesn't bother to try to give his center a rebound. Instead, he feeds Eriksson Ek for something like a hockey alley-oop; lobbing the puck towards Eriksson Ek to slam into the net with force.

Is this a trend that King introduced? We're not totally sure. But Eriksson Ek has already been fed on as many power play goals as he had in 78 games last season. Whether it's a point of emphasis or a coincidence, Eriksson Ek is showing that he can be a weapon beyond cleaning up the trash around the net. If King and the players unlock this, this could create a massive year for their constantly improving No. 1 center.